"The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. ~ The Analects

"I always say that chicken, pork, fish and duck are the original heroes of the board, each with a flavor of its own, each with its distinctive style; whereas sea slug and swallows nest are commonplace fellows with no character, in fact they're mere hangers-on (despite their costliness). I was once invited to a banquet given by a certain Governor, who gave each of us 4 taels of plain boiled swallows nest, served in enormous vase as huge as flower-pot. It had no taste at all. While other guests were obsequious in their praise of it, I said: 'We are here to eat swallows nest, not to take delivery of it wholesale.' If our host's object was simply to impress, it would have been better to put a hundred pearls into each bowl. Then we should have known that the meal had cost him tens of thousands, without the unpleasantness of being expected to eat the uneatable." "Recipes of the Sui Garden"Yuan Mei

March 19, 2011

not losing to the rainnot losing to the windnot losing to the snow nor to summer's heatwith a strong bodyunfettered by desirenever losing tempercultivating a quiet joyevery day four bowls of brown ricemiso and some vegetables to eatin everythingcount yourself last and put others before youwatching and listening, and understandingand never forgettingin the shade of the woods of the pines of the fieldsbeing in a little thatched hutif there is a sick child to the eastgoing and nursing over themif there is a tired mother to the westgoing and shouldering her sheaf of riceif there is someone near death to the southgoing and saying there's no need to be afraidif there is a quarrel or a suit to the northtelling them to leave off with such wastewhen there's drought, shedding tears of sympathywhen the summer's cold, wandering upsetcalled a blockhead by everyonewithout being praisedwithout being blamedsuch a personI want to become

February 27, 2011

Speaking as a foodie, this is just so timely with all the uproars over the region: a "Humpy" meal from Heston Blumenthal inspired by Lawrence of Arabia. I guess the only way for me to one-up on my man would be a horse burger a la Genghis Khan of Mongal Grassland!

February 24, 2011

Geez, that is a downright catchy way to start the conversation... though I can't remember saying that. Or did I say “writing a food blog is passé”? I mean, it's a bit perverse to say that when you're still trying to run a food blog yourself, no?

There's tons of things me and Nana need to patch up as we progress. But putting things into perspective, video blogging is definitely a force to the reckoned with [link of the article by Amy here].

February 09, 2011

It was November when I first mentioned about doing a "24-hour at" kind of thing when I saw Richard popped up 2 pieces of time-lapse video for his Dutch counterparts on his Facebook page. I know we're in for some ground-breaking endeavor when Ricard jumped into the idea without any hesitation: he replied within seconds to my tease.

What followed were meetings and meetings. Stephen (my dearest production partner) and I sit down with Richard a couple times to go through the idea in details. More than talks, we literally stationed at the kitchen for a whole evening to feel it out -- we knew from the outset that it's very important to get a grip on where is the action. The point is to be at the right place at the right time for this kind of video genre. We run through shooting ideas and angles again and again at the bar off Amber (the Scotches on the house surely soothed up the brainstorming process a great deal). We even invited our friend to be the project manager and diagrammed a chart about exactly where should we be shooting during the 24 hours. The process was strenous but ultimately rewarding for we all knew we're in for some sort of history. The goal is simple: 24 hours for Amber in all its glory, under 3 minutes. Bang, a first for everyone involved.

So here it is, I hope you can sense what I felt when you watch it. Inside the kitchen there's grace and there's awareness. A sense of where things belong and what is to be done. In kitchen jargon it is what we called the dance in the kitchen. All thing said, it's about time for a well-deserved first for Asia. Please enjoy.

December 20, 2010

A whole new level of crustiness is achieved with my mini baguette (bâtard) x mini roast pork belly (jujaibao x xiunamjai 豬仔包 x 燒腩仔). So much that I have to beg your not trying this at home lest you don't mind pants be jizzed.

But you're welcome if you figure that turn of event is worthy still once in a while. Get these: right out the oven mini baguette (bâtard) roast mini pork belly (or the crackling skins of roast suckling pig), lettuce, tomatoes and a lot of mustard. Trust me, it's fireworks for the mouth.

December 19, 2010

The TV side dish is one of the most overlooked dining culture in Hong Kong. Its predominancy at low to mid range dining spots (think chachaanteng, congee and noodles shop and teahouse) almost goes side by side (no pun intended, really) with chopsticks and spoons, if not more.

December 05, 2010

It's Sunday and our Wok With Nana double installment of Hakka cuisine will surely make you laugh like an eight year-old. Frankly, you might as well hurt your jaws laughing if you're into Hakka cuisine playing in HD.

Anyways, it's Hakka not Hanukkah we're talking about here so do expect pork after pork after pork! On a side note, I always wonder how it would feel like to eat pork while listening to this song...

November 25, 2010

May you know this feeling many times... and so, we're airing a doubleheader with episodes about Chinese tea. One with Nana visiting her friend Vivian's tea shop and getting acquainted again with her tea and the other with her giving a cooking spree with the tea just got home with. Just in case you forgot, you can always watch it the HD version of them on our home channel.